I read an article a while back ( not the story I read but the same idea http://wadias.in/site/arzan/blog/ikea-and-india/ http://wadias.in/site/arzan/blog/ikea-a

I read an article a while back ( not the story I read but the same idea http://wadias.in/site/arzan/blog/ikea-and-india/ http://wadias.in/site/arzan/blog/ikea-and-india/) that talked about how in India the new middle class want Ikea stuff but they aren't there yet. So these people will take Ikea catalogs to local craftsmen and have them produce furniture that looks just like the stuff in the catalog. I would suspect that the quality is much higher (materials and whatnot). Personally when I am in Ikea I think that where things are headed is to make the stuff infinitely customizable using the website. I mean image if you went to their site and started with one of the basic notions like 'chair', 'table', or 'shelf' and could (w/in reason) stretch and distort the base product. Then they figure out how much it would cost to build that and ship it to you. Maybe even work out custom assembly instructions etc. It would be cool to stretch a table and watch the price change continuously then maybe jump up quickly. You could investigate and see that at that length it would require an extra piece of metal for support for example.